


Intervention

by Serasent



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bad Puns, Body Dysphoria, F/F, NaN being too pure for this world, Relationship(s), Transformation, real talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serasent/pseuds/Serasent
Summary: Season 10, Day 85, and Nagomi Mcdaniel is on Hawai'i for the first time in years. But can she rekindle her relationship alone, or will her friends have to step in?
Relationships: Nagomi Mcdaniel/York Silk's Mom
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically a followup to my last Nagomi angstfic (at https://archiveofourown.org/works/27010099) but should work whether you've read it or not.

Season 10, Day 85, and it's 5:15 PM. It's been 5:15 PM for a long time. This being a Fridays home game, the Crabs are meeting their opposition where the vibes feel right, which in this case is an open field at the edge of a wood, sloping gently towards a cliff edge, the hastily-assembled wooden bleachers gleaming in the Friday afternoon sun. After taking the field to the supportive cheers of the home crowd, as well as the whoops of the die-hard Baltimore faithful that had followed the team all the way here, the Crabs have been having a disappointing start to their first match of the season on Island Time, with opening pitchers Tot Fox and Forrest Best both out in short order, but all that changes now. Now, their returning ace Nagomi Mcdaniel is taking the plate.

Nagomi steps up to the plate, and before she squares up, closes her eyes for a moment, breathes the old, familiar island air that she hasn't tasted in years, and listens to the roar of the crowd. _...but is that voice among them?_ needles that same, uncomfortable voice at the back of her mind, a grain of sand underneath the armour she keeps between herself and the world, and it bothers her enough to open her eyes... just in time to see the Fridays pitcher already mid-release. Scrambling on instinct to react, she swings hurriedly, making contact earlier than planned and sending the ball rocketing down the third base line.

 **_F O U L B A L L_ ** , hisses the ump, and Nagomi shoots a withering glare to the pitcher, receiving an inscrutable look in return from the base-headed McBlase. Nagomi shakes her head, trying to clear all thoughts outside of the game from her mind. _Come on, Gomi,_ she thinks. _Keep your head in the game for now, and you can think about her when you're done._ But even as she thinks that, the same aggravating grain of sand grinds at the edges of her consciousness, listening to the crowd, and the wind, and the crash of the waves at the base of the cliff, and the steady, enticing susurrus of the ocean...

 **_S T R I K E T W O_ ** , the ump growls as the fastball slaps into the catcher's mitt, and the crowd is silent now, shouts of support and rivalry abandoned, they know something's wrong, and Nagomi can feel the umpire's hot breath on her back, can almost _hear_ the hunger in its eyes...

 _That's right, Gomi,_ growls that dark, twisted voice inside her, a voice that is only vaguely starting to sound like her own, _focus on the fire,_ and that's right, she knows what that feels like now, she's felt what should have been unbearable heat pouring out from under an umpire's mask and engulfing her, then sinking into that bone-deep, hungry cavity somewhere inside her, burnt hollow by the season's decrees, and she's felt the joy of the raw power it brought her, swinging into a huge home run, and she imagines that fire within her now, and everything slows to a crawl as the pitcher releases the ball, and she swings...

"WOOOO! Get em, babe!" That familiar voice calls from the crowd, breaking Nagomi's concentration for a split second. Her bat makes contact, and she runs, but she knows even before she starts moving that it connected wrong, and sure enough, what could have been another home run angles ineffectually into the ground, and the fielders easily put her out at first. The ump calls the out, and the inning ends, and just for a second, before she goes to take up her usual place in the infield, she can't help herself shooting an angry glare in the direction of that voice, the rage in her compound eye cutting through the crowd to a face she hasn't seen in years. It only lasts an instant, and she knows right away that she was wrong to be angry, that it was her own fault, but it's already too late, and the shock and hurt on a face she hasn't seen in years weighs on her as she walks across the field.

\-------

It's still 5:15, but later. The game is over, a disappointing 3-2 loss, and despite the two home runs she blasted over the cliff's edge, that first out still looms large in Nagomi's mind. That, and those two green eyes in the crowd that she hasn't been able to meet, ever since that awful moment when the creature she is becoming looked out through her eyes. Now, most of the demoralised Crabs have headed back to the nearby cabin serving as an impromptu locker room/after-party bar, but Nagomi just stands awkwardly by the side of the diamond. She practically lives in her team colours these days: since the latest bout of carcinisation, most of her other clothes don't fit any more. She'd meant to get some new ones, but what did she even _do_ off the field nowadays? So instead, she just stands and waits, dreading the conversation she knows has to be coming.

"H...hi babe." Nagomi snaps out of her reverie, and just for a moment, she sees before her the shy, anxious girl she remembers from school, scared to ask for a dance. As she focuses on reality again, though, the image fades into the woman her partner has become: still anxious, though better at fighting past it, but older, and more sure of her place in the world. The same fear still lurks in her eyes, though, ( _...fear of us..._ , the voice hisses) and while she does not look much older than when Nagomi saw her last, nearly four seasons ago, her drawn face and the darkness behind her eyes bespeak the pain of someone who has had to see terrible things happen to the ones they love.

"Hey honey," Nagomi says, and as she meets her beloved's eyes, a flood of pent-up emotion crashes through her defences, and the two women run to each other, embracing in the warm, amber light of that eternal afternoon. But Nagomi feels her lover's hand rest awkwardly on the spiny carapace of her hip, and she is suddenly aware of the weight of her new shell, the splintered, shimmering vision in her right eye, the heat etched into her bones, and the steady, enticing thrum of the blood in Mrs Silk's body, and she stiffens and draws back.

"Nagomi? What's wrong, babe?"

"Nothing, I just... It's a lot."

"Well, of course it is, silly! You've been in that shell for so long, so much has changed, we haven't seen each other since then, and..." She trails off, but Nagomi can hear York's unspoken name, heavy in the air between them, as sure as if it had been said, and while she still cannot meet her partner's gaze, she knows those brilliant green eyes are beginning to glisten with tears. 

"But it's not just all that that's changed, is it?", Nagomi asks, as she steps back and gestures down at herself. "I don't even know what I am any more, and I don't know how much of what I do or what I want is just what _this_ wants, and we just lost to the goddamn _Fridays!_ "

Mrs Silk's face hardens, and Nagomi knows instantly that she's gone too far.

"The Fridays aren't _that_ bad." Her voice is distant, and as fragile as glass. "We might not be the _Crabs_ , but we're not so bad, and besides, he isn't even..." The glass cracks, and the tears are now falling freely. "Never mind that, though. We haven't seen each other in so long, and it shouldn't be like this. Are you coming home? We have so much catching up to do."

"I'm... I don't know." Nagomi is still backing away, not even fully in control of her legs now. "I think... I still need...time. I'm gonna go back with the team - Forrest made a chaffinch sound earlier, and I'm pretty sure that meant he knows a quick way back through the woods? I'll... I'll see you at the game."

Nagomi turns away, ignoring the confused words from the woman she loves so much it scares her to be with her, and sets off towards the team, and a world she understands.

In the quiet after the game, on a windblown clifftop, in the calm light of a Friday afternoon, Mrs Silk sinks back down onto the bleachers and weeps.

\--------

NAGOMI M, 5:15pm > Hey, you around?

NAGOMI N, 4:43 pm > yeah, just beat the STs at home, which i think makes us basically the champions now? what up

NAGOMI M, 5:15 pm > I saw her again after the game? It went

NAGOMI M, 5:15 pm > Bad

NAGOMI M, 5:15 pm > She's different? Like, I don't know if she's changed, but the world has, and so have I

NAGOMI M, 5:15 pm > It's tough to see who we are any more

NAGOMI N, 6:02 pm > oops

NAGOMI N, 6:02 pm > sorry, we both had to eat

NAGOMI N, 6:02 pm > didn't mean to leave you hanging

NAGOMI M, 7:16 pm > It's okay

NAGOMI N, 6:04 pm > you two doing better now? catching up?

NAGOMI M, 7:20 pm > I don't know

NAGOMI M, 7:20 pm > She isn't here

NAGOMI M, 7:20 pm > We kind of fought, and I went back on my own

NAGOMI N, 6:08 pm > smh

NAGOMI N, 6:08 pm > my dude

NAGOMI N, 6:08 pm > where you at now? the traditional crab trip to that bar with the plasma ball things?

NAGOMI M, 7:26 pm > No

NAGOMI M, 7:26 pm > I needed some space to think

NAGOMI M, 7:26 pm > Got a hotel on my own

NAGOMI M, 7:26 pm > They're pretty busy, only had one of the big suites free

NAGOMI M, 7:27 pm > But I guess I got paid when we won, even though I wasn't really conscious? So I can afford it, seems like

NAGOMI N, 6:11 pm > huh

NAGOMI N, 6:11 pm > what you doing then

NAGOMI M, 7:28 pm > Nothing really

NAGOMI M, 7:28 pm > I don't really do things except play now?

NAGOMI N, 6:12 pm > oh ffs

NAGOMI N, 6:12 pm > gimme a minute

Nagomi sits listlessly on the unexpectedly-palatial hotel bed, and stares blankly at her phone. In the corner of her eye, however, she sees something move, and as she looks up, she sees the shadows in the unlit corner by the room's second bed begin to darken and grow. Uneasy, she reaches for her shinai, but her worry fades as the shadows deepen, and fill with familiar eyes and teeth, and then, suddenly, Nagomi Nava is standing in the room with her, the crawling shadows retreating into the void in the side of her face. 

"Wh- How did you find me?" Nagomi splutters, and she realises that, although her regular brain understood that her friend was coming, her claw was still poised to strike without her even being aware of it.

"Eh, I know people. Don't worry about that, though - I say this with all the love in the world, but get up, loser. We're gonna go find the bar, we're gonna get drunk, I'm going to convince them to let me use the piano, and then you are going to go and _talk to your girlfriend_."

She tries to offer some rebuttal, some resistance, but Nagomi Nava just grabs her by the armoured shoulders and hustles her out of the door.

\---------

They find the bar. They get drunk (but the crab part of her struggles to feel it). The other Nagomi plays the piano. She does not go and talk to her girlfriend. At the end of the night, one Nagomi goes back to a hotel whose name she can't remember, and the other steps back through the shadows.

\-----------

NAGOMI N, XX:XX pm > hey guys

NAGOMI N, XX:XX pm > im gonna need a favor

\---------

It's still dark, and Nagomi Mcdaniel is awoken by the insistent cheep of an alarm clock she doesn't remember setting. She opens one bleary eye, finding the room's lights still blazing, ( _did I forget to turn them off?,_ she thinks) and reaches for the clock, only to suddenly realise that it's 4:18 a.m., and that the noise isn't coming from there. She turns her head, and has to hold her claw back from lashing out at the small, bright red bird perched on her pillow, before her rational brain recognises him.

"...Fletch? What the hell are you… Huh." As Nagomi comes round and the room swims into focus, she realises that the 'i'iwi isn't the only unexpected visitor. As well as Yamamoto, the other Nagomi is back, draped blearily over the second bed, the shadowy tendrils reaching from the side of her face currently rifling through the minibar, and less expectedly, her newest teammate, Silvaire Roadhouse, is watching her anxiously, her large frame and poncho oddly out of place in the room's nondescript office chair, and Forrest Best, familiar but still somewhat disconcerting, lurks silently in the corner of the room.

"Easy, girl," Silvaire murmurs, raising a hand calmingly. "Ain't nothin' to be worried about, we're all friends here." Nagomi struggles up to a sitting position, rapidly discovering that she still isn't quite as awake or as sober as she would have liked, and both her eyes glare at the intruders. "N, you better have a _hell_ of an explanation for what's going on here," she spits.

" **Gomi,** " Nagomi Nava slurs, clearly tired and drunk enough that the hollow hiss of the shadows is bleeding into her voice, " **shuddup. We're here t'help.** " 

"Help? With what? I was just trying to get a good night's sleep before we go lose to the Fridays again." Nagomi can hear the petulance and dishonesty in her voice, but she doesn't much care.

"Come on through to the other room, and we can all have a talk," says Silvaire, still in the tone she might use with a skittish horse, as she rises to her feet.

"All?" Nagomi asks, anger giving way to confusion, but Forrest replies with the sound of a blackbird landing in thick undergrowth, and gestures to the door.

Nagomi gets up, still wearing her spare uniform, and heads for the door. It is only when her hand is on the handle that she realises that some part of her knows she is going into a fight, as she seems to have picked up her kendo mask and fastened it to the side of her head without thinking about it. Stepping through the door, she knows she should be expecting more company, but still has to hold back her surprise at the collection of people in the suite's living room.

Still as sharp as ever in a dark blazer, a thin smoke rippling from the flickering fingers of her left arm, draped over the back of a sofa, Nagomi recognises the notorious figure of Jaylen Hotdogfingers, as well as a woman in a red-and-pink Lovers jacket that she recalls from San Francisco games - Parker something? - and a pale man in an impeccable waistcoat-and-tie combination that she _thinks_ plays for the Mills? But the others are less familiar: a slender figure in a grey hoodie, with what look like squid tentacles emerging from the sleeves, a human-shaped haze of static in purple blasketball shorts and a tank top reading "CAN'T SPELL METAMOUR WITHOUT ARMOUR", and a man in a ratty blue tee and jeans whom Nagomi feels like she almost remembers, but she finds it hard to keep her eyes on him, and he seems to slip her mind as soon as she stops looking. 

"Sit down, hun, it's time for some tough love," Parker Meng says, and smirks as she cracks her knuckles, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction. Whatever it is, it doesn't come. "Oh yeah, that's not our thing over here, is it. Huh. Ah well, point stands. Nagomi - the other Nagomi, that is - was talking to us, and the subject of you having seen your girlfriend like once since what, season 6?, and that was a fight, came up, so-”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” Nagomi’s voice comes out louder and harsher than even she was expecting. “So what, this is a goddamn _intervention?_ In my _love life?_ _At four in the goddamn morning?_ Screw this, I’m out.” She grabs her room key and storms to the front door, throwing it open and charging through it without even thinking, only to be stopped short by some kind of bouncy red barrier. She looks up, and realises that she has walked into, of all things, a nine-foot axolotl in a red-and-gold Tigers uniform, who is now smiling beatifically down at her, but also slowly shaking his head and very pointedly blocking the door. Nagomi just stands there for a moment, dumbfounded, and her confusion at the day she is having only slightly increases as her gaze falls, and she realises that the player she has just walked into is carrying, in the breast pocket that is now at her eye level, a tiny, bright green frog wearing a pointed pink hat covered in stars. "Hey friend!", the frog croaks, in a remarkably chirpy tone, and Nagomi sags as she feels the carapace around her heart begin to crack. At Richmond Harrison's gentle prompting, she turns around, re-enters the room, and silently sinks into an elaborately-decorated armchair.

The cloud of static condenses into a more recognisably human shape with a clear effort of will, and his voice is far younger and more timid than Nagomi was expecting. "Look, I... I know we don't all know you that well, but we're here because Nagomi loves you, and she was worried about you. I know a lot has changed for you lately, and I know it's scary, and we just wanted to come and show you that… that you're not the only one, I guess? I mean, look what this splort has done to us - I lost my body and my name…"

“I got halfway eaten by a god and now I look like this,” pipes up the bubbling voice of PolkaDot Patterson, gesturing at their beak with their tentacles.

“I’m...not really here all the way any more?” a voice adds from next to Nagomi. She doesn’t remember there being anyone there before. She can’t remember who said that.

“I _died_ , for chrissakes, and I feel like it won’t be the last time,” growls Jaylen, wincing as the flickering gets stronger, and suddenly Nagomi finds herself on the couch, looking at Jaylen in the armchair. “And I’m pretty sure at least one person in here is a goddamn vampire?” 

In the corner of Nagomi’s vision, she sees Thomas Dracaena and Richmond Harrison exchange a worried glance.

“But we’re all still _here_ , is the point,” Parker continues. “And the one thing that never changes in this life we signed up for - those of us that even did - is that something new and worse that you never could’ve expected is _always_ right around the corner, and you’re never going to be able to prepare for it or stop it, so you might as well find love where you can. So can you just go and make up with her now? Two of us are meant to be doing drills in Chicago in,” she checks her watch and does some quick maths, “Well, basically now. Come on, NaN, Knight said there was something special planned today.”

And with that, she and the static get up and walk back into the bedroom, and Nagomi hears the faint hiss of Nagomi Nava pulling someone through her shadow. It takes her several seconds to realise she is weeping.

“Hey now.” Nagomi hears a quiet voice, and feels arms around her before suddenly noticing the thin man in the blue t-shirt that has embraced her. _Wait_ , she thinks, _hasn’t he been here the whole time? How did I forget him? Do I know him? He reminds me of a song…_

The man pulls back, lays a barely-substantial hand on Nagomi’s shoulder, and meets her tearful gaze with his as he says, in a voice of deep resignation mixed with paradoxical hope, “Don’t wait for everyone to forget you. You know what you’ve gotta do.”

Nagomi blinks. There’s nobody there. Was there ever?

She stands. “Um… Yeah. I get it. I should go get a cab,” she mumbles through tears. Is Nagomi good to take you all home?”

“I got you!”, chirps a familiar voice, and Nagomi sees the frog leap out of Harrison’s pocket and suddenly become surrounded by a shifting bubble of sparkling lights, before hitting the floor in the form of a teenage girl with bright green hair, an elaborate dress, and the same star-spangled hat, now holding a cattail as tall as she is. “Hold on tight, and count to three! One! Two!”

“Um, wh-”, Nagomi starts, before, on the count of three, her vision fills with pink and green lights, and when it clears, she is standing in front of a familiar door. To her side, a green-and-white mailbox reads SILK. She rings the bell, not expecting a response at this time of night, but hears footsteps from inside almost immediately.

When Mrs Silk opens the door, it is clear that she, too, has been openly crying, with no fear any longer of anyone being around to judge her for it.

“Nagomi? What’s going on?”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Nagomi stammers, feeling the heat of tears prickle at her cheeks, and the pain she can no longer hide rise up in the back of her throat. “I’m scared, and everything’s changed, and I didn’t want to hurt you, but… It was stupid and selfish of me to hurt you like this just because I was scared of things being different. I’ve made mistakes, and I know that you’ve been through some horrible things as well, but… But I love you, and I’m sorry, and I want to try. You don’t have to forgive me, but… Can we try?”

Barely have these words escaped her mouth when her partner’s arms are around her, and both in tears, they share the embrace that the gods have denied them for so long.

“I love you too, babe. Come inside? We have so much catching up to do.”

\------

Upstairs, in a green velvet box in an unremarkable drawer, the coral-and-obsidian ring bides its time. It’s already waited so long, but soon, they will have all the Island Time in the world.

\-----------------

  
  



End file.
